Community activists storm LA court to oppose gang injunctions

Protestors against the police use of gang injunctions gather outside the Stanley Mosk Superior Court Building on Hill Street in downtown Los Angeles, where the fate of Inglewood and Echo Park injunctions was being considered. (Brad Graverson / Staff Photographer)

Protestors against the police use of gang injunctions gather outside the Stanley Mosk Superior Court Building on Hill Street in downtown Los Angeles, where the fate of Inglewood and Echo Park injunctions was being considered. (Brad Graverson / Staff Photographer)

Long heralded as D-Day for grass-roots activists opposed to the use of civil gang injunctions, two court hearings held Wednesday at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles were short on fireworks and heavy on procedure.

In the first instance, the city of Inglewood sought to ban alleged members of four street gangs from the neighborhoods where they live.

Targeted were: Inglewood 13, Neighborhood Pirus, Family Gangster Bloods and Centinela Park street gangs. A prior injunction in Inglewood covers almost the entire city. After a closed-door procedural hearing Wednesday morning, the matter was ordered back before Judge Mark Mooney on Oct. 23.

Down the hall in a second hearing, Judge Abraham Khan approved a motion that allows the city of Los Angeles to serve civil complaints to known members of the Big Top Locos, Echo Park Locos, Diamond Street Locos, Crazys, Frog Town and Headhunters street gangs and would creates a safe zone that covers Echo Park, Elysian Valley and portions of Silver Lake. The serving of the complaints precedes a gang injunction.

Despite packing the courtroom with protesters angered by the use of gang injunctions, organizers from the Youth Justice Coalition were disappointed that Khan didn’t allow them to speak out in court against the injunction.

“There were 150 people down here that opposed the injunctions and they were denied the chance to speak out in court,” said Kim McGill, organizer with the Youth Justice Coalition, an Inglewood nonprofit opposed to the use of gang injunctions.

Since the protesters were not named in the civil complaint against the gang they are not able to speak in court, officials said.

Attorney Donald Hammond, who stepped in on behalf of the Echo Park street gangs minutes before Wednesday’s motion hearing, pleaded with Khan for more time to file an appeal. Khan denied the plea.

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And while Khan granted the city of Los Angeles’ motion he said both sides need to engage in talks prior to Sept. 11, the next court date in the city of Los Angeles’ effort to seek an Echo Park gang injunction.

“I would urge the city attorney to speak with you and anyone who wants to speak with the city attorney about this case,” Khan said.

City Attorney Mike Feuer said he would meet with any attorney representing the defendants on the Echo Park injunction. Hammond has not decided whether he will take the case going forward.

For weeks McGill and other organizers have been holding rallies, forums and public meetings building up to Wednesday when they planned to show their outrage for both injunctions. They left the building concerned that the grass-roots movement built over months, could fizzle as lawyers for the cities of Inglewood and Los Angeles wait out the opposition.

“If they come in here quietly with no one showing up in opposition they can easily get these injunctions,” she said. “Remember, these lawyers have full-time jobs and salaries to put in place these injunctions.”

Jim McDougal pulled double duty Wednesday representing Los Angeles as deputy city attorney in the Echo Park civil gang action and Inglewood as special counsel in the civil action against four gangs in that city. The 18-year veteran of the legal battle against gangs noted that the recent push back to gang injunctions is the most vocal opposition he has seen in more than a decade.

“You would have to go back to the 1990s to find the last time you have seen this many people opposed to an injunction,” he said.

Critics of gang injunctions have long argued that the civil lawsuits filed against street gangs are vague and often result in police officers harassing people who are not gang members.

Under an injunction, known gang members cannot associate with one another inside the area under the injunction. Gang members can attend school together, but cannot travel to and from school together. Owning a cellphone or a pager can violate the injunction, according to court documents.

Violating the terms of the gang injunction can lead to a misdemeanor charge.

“The people affected by this injunction will have to deal with that many more stops, that many more frisks, that much more exposure to the terror brought by cops in gang injunctions,” said Kruti Parekh, program coordinator with the Youth Justice Coalition.

And perhaps most troubling to the critics of the injunctions is that identification of alleged gang members is left up to police and not the courts.

But McDougal, who has written gang injunctions for both the city of Los Angeles and other municipalities since 1995, said local law enforcement knows how to distinguish between gang members and other people in the community.

“First these six gangs named in the Echo Park action are mostly Hispanic gangs. And when a guy has an EP (Echo Park) tattoo and a Rhino (a symbol associated with the Echo Park gang) you know he is a gang member,” McDougal said. “When it comes to identifying gang members, we have tightened up this part of the gang enforcement a lot. I have traveled all over the country and the LAPD gang unit is as good as it gets in gang enforcement.”